


On My Knees I Pray For Our Sins

by solarpillar (solarwind)



Category: Shin Megami Tensei: Devil Survivor
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-21
Updated: 2015-04-26
Packaged: 2018-01-20 05:25:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 4,578
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1498300
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/solarwind/pseuds/solarpillar
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Murderer and murderer living together. Hide bodies and pray for peace.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Naoya

"I’m sure that you can do better, mr…?"

"Naoya Minegishi. And yes, I can."

Keisuke isn’t entirely sure what is going on. The same man who gave him power prior to the lockdown, the same man who convinced Kazuya to-

No. That isn’t right. He has never met this man before. There was a lockdown because of gas leak and terrorists. This man looks like Atsuro’s friend, but older. A relative?

But there in the corner of his mind, Keisuke remembers more. Demons. Angels. A human who…

He can’t remember anymore.

"Well? When can I move in?"

The man, Naoya, is going to rent this apartment with him and become his new roommate. He looks like a good man. Polite, frail… dangerous. He looks dangerous. Keisuke is silently praying that this man isn’t a serial killer.

"You can move in next Tuesday," Keisuke says instead.

 

\--

 

The new roommate, Naoya Minegishi, is not an eccentric fellow beyond his strange haori, to Keisuke's relief. He is a shut-in, but it is expected for his job. A programmer. Sits behind his old desktop and slowly types, sometimes speaks to the webcam installed above. Rarely leaves it to eat or sleep, or anything else. In fact, beside the first day and the day of their meeting, Keisuke doesn't remember Naoya doing anything other than type, or anywhere other than behind the computer. He doesn't do shopping, his young cousin (Kazuya, was it?) does that for him. Occasionally, Atsuro does that instead. He eats in front of the computer, sleeps in the same spot next to the computer, and instead of going to the kitchen he keeps an electric stove next to himself and cooks and makes tea there. There is also a box of paper tissues that gets replaced now and then, but he does not remember seeing Naoya use them either, only the small pile of used papers that increased in volume before the cousin picks them up in a plastic bag and throws them away.

Keisuke has heard about the job of programming. One tenth creating and nine tenths catching and patching up bugs.

If romanticized, it could sound like living as a data vigilante.

 

\--

 

Keisuke isn't sure who struck first. All that he knows is that the man is dead, the victim is gone, and he is himself, by law, a murderer. The very crime he tried to prevent in his intervention. The alley is deserted, devoid of other witnesses, or so he believes. He hopes there is no other witness. Wishes. Someone will know. The victim will tell, and he will be the one behind the bars, not the man lying in a pool of his own blood. Some of that blood soaked through Keisuke's shoes. There is more on his pants and shirts, and his face and both of his hands. The sin was done. The metaphorical crows have started their scratching, and it is time to hide the consequence of the sin.

Keisuke isn't very good at hiding bodies. He tried to drag it away, but the trail of blood would without doubt give him away. So he went to the nearest dumpster, freed a bag of its content, and used it to wrap the body up. In a manga, or a Dan Brown perhaps, the body would be hidden in plain sight, the identity of the killer blurred by a dozen red herrings, perhaps in a way that makes it look like suicide or accident. This isn't a manga. And Keisuke does not know how to set up red herrings, or erase preexisting evidences. He has dragged it to the dead end right outside the construction site entrance, somewhat of fifteen feet away from the murder site, should the wall between them be absent. Not far enough, or not close enough. Who knows. He doesn't know.

He sits next to the body, and prays. He doesn't know which god to pray to, or what to say in the prayer. He doesn't want to walk free from his crime. He doesn't want to be left to rot in prison, either. He prays to nothing in an empty prayer, and he buries his face in his hands, the smell of blood suffocating.

It was then that an angel arrived in the form of his roommate.

"What a mess. Weren't you supposed to be back at nine? It is past ten, you sure took your time."

Naoya. Smiling like the devil. If he is indeed an angel, he is not of mercy.

"Not answering, are you? I see. I hope you aren't planning to get arrested, I would be in trouble too, should that happen. I do not enjoy talking to dogs of the government."

"I..."

"Yes? Speak up, I can barely hear you."

"I wish..."

"Shut up." Naoya's voice was sharp and dry.

Keisuke is taken aback by Naoya's sudden change of mood.

"For my own sake, I will clean up this mess. Do it yourself next time." And Naoya takes out a communication player, inputs a series of commands, and presses a button. Then they arrived.

Crows.

This is ridiculous, Keisuke thinks, crows do not come out at night. But they are here, a mixed murder of crows and ravens, eating away the carcass. Then Naoya drags a hose from the construction site, and washes the blood away. All calm. Like a parent working at a housechore, not a man hiding murder evidence.

 

And to have crows answer his call like demons to a summon...

 

Keisuke remembers the oath of a golden bird, and can remember no more.

 

\--

 

Keisuke is certain that Naoya is right behind the door, listening. Naoya, who usually never leaves his old and worn computer. The boy feels more naked than he already is in the shower, as if Naoya can hear beyond his skin and into his heart and mind. He is certain that he can. For a moment, before the opening alleyway, Naoya... seemed more than a common mortal human, like a saint or a god.

"I can't wait anymore. This stench is nauseating."

Naoya breaks in. Keisuke almost screams, eyes widens and face twists, first of outrage and then of horror. Naoya's body is mere bones. Keisuke knew this, of course, the way Naoya's shirts and pants flopped and sagged over the skin-wrapped bones, but to see it, bare before him, was something he has never imagined. It is worse than the pictures of starving children in third countries. It is so pale, and if not for the pink and green veins he'd believe him a corpse. So starved, he wonders how this programmer stays alive. It takes more than a nerd's resilience, something akin to a divine miracle. 

"Move out of the way. Can't you see that I'm your senior? I should wash first in the first place."

Keisuke obeys. Naoya gives him a good shove for good measure anyway. The boy ends outside on the wooden floor, on his knees, water dripping from everywhere. 

On his knees, the boy tries to remember, but his mind is all red with memories of human blood.

 


	2. Cain

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> To understand, one must go back, further back...

Keisuke wakes up in his room, in his bed, all clean and dry and dressed. He barely remembers, but he does, not the details but the emotions of the memories, heavy and with a unpleasant feeling of recursion and entrapment. But that is human life, isn’t it? Had it mattered, he would not be studying law, but humanities and philosophy. Yet he is studying law, because that will allow him to act, to have an illusion of control. To at least cheat the laws of men. For justice. Or so he prefers.

In his attempt to step off the bed, his foot lands on something soft, and as it moves it makes him fall face first to the tatami covered floor.

“Ow…”

The soft thing echos, and the sound was familiar. Human. Friend?

“Atsuro?”

“Keisuke! You woke up!”

As Atsuro strangulates Keisuke in one of his lethal affectionate squid hug, the law student had some hypothesis in mind:

1) He was too stressed and last night was only a nightmare.

2) Last night was real. He is now a murderer.

He wishes it was a nightmare. It would be best for everybody involved. But if 2) is true… then Atsuro might become a accomplice, and it would be trouble. He did not save the boy from bullies only to involve him in murder. Not that Atsuro is murdering anyone, or helping him murdering anyone… but to help a murderer, he would be suspected such.

He touches the bridge of his nose out of reflex, trying to find a pair of glasses that aren’t there, and gave up when he feels only air and his own skin, and Atsuro, considerate as always, immediately went to grab them from the desk and hands them to him. Like a puppy. Human puppy.

He isn’t sure if he should ask if Atsuro knows. What Atsuro knows. What had Naoya said to Atsuro.

Any question would be trouble, but Keisuke could not be silent forever.

“He knows. Don’t bother.”

Keisuke almost jumped. Atsuro, arms outstretched in a way that looks as if trying to catch him, was smiling the most bitter smile.

“Naoya, that isn’t nice. Don’t worry Keisuke, we always knew. It doesn’t matter.”

“What do you know?”

Both Naoya and Atsuro are silent. Atsuro, sitting in front of Keisuke, is making a face as if to say what do we do? Naoya, whose face Keisuke could not see from this angle, is likely making an non-committal expression, judging from Atsuro’s reaction. After approximately five facial expressions only exchanges, Atsuro sighed.

“I know that you are a mass murderer. Remember. But that doesn’t matter.”

“Woah whoa wait what?”

 

-O

 

There was someone, is someone, visiting Naoya almost every night. Keisuke, whose curfew was nine and who slept at no later than midnight, never knew. Now he knows. A gigolo.

Or that was what Kazuya called him. He also heard from him “manwhore”, “slut”, “incubus” and “thief of my brother”, among other things.

There are also “demon”, “tyrant”, “troublesome rebellious living sex toy”.

Keisuke never knew Kazuya had such filthy vocabulary in his mind. He kind of regrets learning that. From afar, Kazuya looked almost like a saint.

The idea is that Loki was sleeping with Naoya. And Kazuya isn’t pleased.

“Keisuke,” Kazuya asks him, hands steadily washing dishes, “do you think a slu- I mean, a man who cannot keep the thing in his pants a secret between himself and a single other living being can give Naoya happiness?”

“…Maybe?” Keisuke isn’t sure. In fact, he doubts it. Less steadily taking washed dishes from Kazuya and putting them on the drying racks, Keisuke ponders. “Probably not.”

“Thought so.” Kazuya pushes a dish a bit too strongly in Keisuke’s hands. “He’s married too. Yet he ignores his wife to flirt with my cousin.”

Keisuke has more questions than he could ask at once. Kazuya said that the man’s a sex worker, and the man’s married, with a wife, but the man is sleeping with Naoya…

“Is Loki homosexual?” Keisuke ventures, though uncertain at his choice of question. “You said that he has a wife. But he’s sleeping with a man right now. Is he not into women?”

“If Loki’s homosexual, then I’m homosexual. He’s not. He’s pan.”

Keisuke stares into the nearest frying pan. Whatever that means.

 

-O

 

When Loki first visited Keisuke at night, it was when Keisuke was dozing off a pile of homework and study material, to give him a book.

“What is that?”

“You’ll like it.”

He thought it would be pornography, but it was Hermann Hesse. Demian. He’d read Siddhartha, but Demian was the one he didn’t feel worth a read.

The story of Emil Sinclair.

Without sin.

As if.

Keisuke throws the book aside. He tries to go back to sleep, but it is difficult. He is not used to have his sleep cycles interrupt is one thing.

The other, is that he is now aware of what the tissues were about. He hears noises that he used to hear only in sleep, and never associated with such activity.

Keisuke, though a boy, had such stubbornness when it comes to justice and goodness that he’d never watched porn.

Now he can see it through the crack of his door. Live. Not that he wants to.

The name that Loki whispers is sometimes not Naoya.

 

-O

 

He picks up the book during recess one day.

The class was especially boring, and his brain screamed for padding material. He found the book in the plastic bag where he keeps his bento, the same book Loki gave him. There is a bit of curry sauce on its lower bottom corner.

Wiping it away, he begins.

> Um meine Geschichte zu erzählen, muß ich weit vorn anfangen. Ich müßte, wäre es mir möglich, noch viel weiter zurück gehen, bis in die allerersten Jahre meiner Kindheit und noch über sie hinaus in die Ferne meiner Herkunft zurück.

Fuck that.

 

-O

 

Naoya never mentioned the murder.

News covered it briefly, but not much. No police came after him. Nobody mentioned it.

He wanted to ask Naoya. He wanted to ask about Naoya.

Why?

Why cover up his murder? Because he did not want to get involved, being his roommate? Because of sympathy? Because he is a murderer himself? Is the latter true?

Why live with him? Because the lodging is cheap? Because of…

He almost remembers.

He vaguely remembers, however, the name Loki called. Not Naoya.

Cain.

Right.

He has a feeling that in order to understand Naoya, he’ll need to go back, far back, to the first years of his childhood, and even into his background, far in distance in time.

Naoya looks old.

 


	3. Human

The crash was inevitable, but you thought their reign would at least last a Millennium. They lied to you all, again. Or, perhaps, it wasn’t even a reign. Or it happened but you were dead, and you didn’t see it. Who knows.

The memory flowed back like water from a opened flood gate, and hit like a sledgehammer.

The Messiah did his best. But everything was so fragile, and humanity so flawed. From monitoring of acts to monitoring of thoughts, no human was deemed pure enough, because what else can human be, but filth? Some are even more than other, but there isn’t a single one that isn’t. Promises of changes are always whispered by bullies who are caught, but who changes? They never stop wanting to hurt, they merely wait for eyes to divert, and then they would act again. Like wolves waiting for shepherds to sleep or leave.

But the angels, though Keisuke knows are needed, did not work in best interest of humans either. Yama, and now them. Is there a single figure whose law can be trusted? Humans aren’t barbarians under them anymore, but the cries of pain never stops, either. Civilization is not synonymous with utopia and far from it.

Once, Japan was filled with its native gods, the crows were divine and so were the foxes, and Hell and Heaven were but one management. Then people forgot them. Then, when they are remembered again, it was when they were driven to extinction. The angels meant it when they said one god, and soon all temples and shrines were lost, to be replaced by sterile buildings lived by men at service of one god. The angels patrolled and visited, invisible to all, and harvested memories like bees visited flowers.

But, once again, they are visible, clear as the days of Lockdown, their faces still the same solid masks. Perhaps he should thank Naoya for this. Perhaps he should curse him.

The angels swarm like crows above the city, blocking out sunlight, screaming anger. They dart down like ospreys for fish, and when they raise again, a charred human is impaled on their lance, to become black dust to be blown away in the wind, human of all shapes, old and young, men and women, some indistinct.

"I thought angels should be justice." He said to himself, hiding behind the window, behind barely lifted curtains. "But this must be justice, right? Angels work for god, and god is just. Must be."

"Do you remember Yama?"

"How do you know about Yama?" Keisuke finds himself screaming, and covers his mouth, peeking sideway to see if the angels heard him. They don't seem to.

"I heard from my cousin, and I have seen you at work during the lockdown." Naoya is calm, too calm. "You actually killed. Not that I didn't think you wouldn't."

Naoya's words hit Keisuke harder than the memories. The thoughts shuffle to find a new order, yet reject what seems to fit.

"Don't worry, I don't think it was a good thing either, and what you did indeed made the lockdown safer. You did exactly what angels should have done."

Keisuke knows Naoya spoke truth. Angels did claim that sinners should be punished, should be pruned. Angels set Kazuya onto the sinners and had him judge them. It was beautiful and fair. Kazuya was merciful, Kazuya was Messiah. He only killed demons.

"You think it was fair too?" Keisuke is surprised, as he remembers Naoya trying to stop them. But then, Naoya helped them too. "Were you merely worried about your brother?" He knows he would have done the same for Midori or his sister, try to spare them of heavy fate of a judge and Messiah.

"Worried? Yes. Fair? No. These humans were children. They didn't know better."

Children. The humans Keisuke killed were adults. But who isn't a child before an ancient immortal?

"But what is going on now? Kazuya became the Messiah, and all should be good now. You saw him. He is a great Messiah. Just, kind..."

Naoya chuckled. It sounds vaguely evil. "Burnout."

"Burnout?"

"The angels took away memories. Without memories of their crimes, and of their guilt afterwards, humans are innocent. But innocence is a dangerous thing. When you do not know evil, you do not stop before evil. Humans will do wrong without knowing they are doing wrong, and same mistakes will be repeated."

"Like wars..."

"Without memories, humans cannot learn. They become dependent on the angels for right and wrong, and become no better than marionettes. Pitiful."

"But this is good, right? We are savages without god! We need god for morality! We need god to exist! Without god, we will destroy ourselves-"

"Nonsense. If we are made in image of god, why should we not have morality of god? If we do not have that, we are not in his image."

Keisuke does not know how to answer. He wanted to argue that because humans ate the fruit, but that only removed immortality, and if anything, it should have given humanity the missing knowledge of good and evil. If humans have eaten the fruit of good and evil, why should men not know between good and evil? Naoya was right. "But the fact is," he was hesitant, "we do not. We make wars and hurt each other."

"Oh, because angels don't do war. Because they are not perpetually in war with all other gods. Because they do not experience expansionism greed and keep murdering and sealing foreign gods and sending humans in wars against each other so they could have more power. Totally."

An ambivalence of anger and resignation set in Keisuke. Naoya was right. God has always existed, but all that Keisuke described, the crimes humans are responsible of, exist with god's existence. He has always known. But he needed a morphine for his pain, needed something to comfort himself, to tell himself that the world is good and taken care of, that there is a cure for the cancers of society. Yet god is not a superior being, not that superior, and is just like humans in savageness.

It never mattered to Keisuke which god helped him. Yama, Odin, Baal, Great Spirit, Rainbow Serpent, Feathered Serpent, Abrahamic One God... As long as it was a god of Law. As long as the ideal of Law is upheld. Yet none of the gods did that, not the way it should be, not the way Keisuke desired, and though the boy did his best to be the agent of law, his efforts were minimal, and the result disappointing.

Until the Messiah was crowned. No man was worthy but the Messiah made them so, first with mercy and then… he gave them innocence. How dare Naoya destroy that.

"So," Keisuke forces himself to regain composure, "without learning, humans make mistakes endlessly. This tired out the Messiah, and angels are taking over? Is this what is happening?"

"Yes." There's a smirk on Naoya's face, more trickster than evil, though still evil. "And because he got jealous of the relationship I share with Loki."

Keisuke wants to slap him. “You planned this!”

“Not this time.” Naoya looks sincere. “It’s a happy accident. Didn't know he cared that way. The angels and the Messiah work must have reduced his tolerance… Loki is full of flaws, one of them must have set him off.” Naoya smiles, the turning of his neck almost alluring. “You can always count on Loki for troubles. We are going to have a revolution.”

Keisuke stomps his way into the kitchen. He needs to calm down. He is increasingly aware of the knives, and he has to tell himself that he shouldn't. He should. But he shouldn't.

Naoya is still the Messiah’s beloved cousin.

But he should stop him, stop Naoya, before the world is chaos all over again, before the entire world becomes like the lockdown.

"I promise you one thing," Keisuke hears Naoya say, "I will kill god, and replace him with a better god."

There is the distinct click and slam of a door, and Naoya is out.

Keisuke does not follow him. He waits in the kitchen until he falls asleep.

 

O-

 

The chaos didn't come. The Messiah calmed down, and the pruning, as the angels called it, stopped. The angels look satisfied. Naoya is nowhere to be seen. Kazuya is at home in Naoya's room, hiding under the blankets. Atsuro is holding his hand, and won't leave him a second except to use the washroom. Keisuke brings them food.

"Thanks, Keisuke. As you can see, Kazuya got quite a shock."

"What is it?" Surely it cannot be something as banal as Naoya eloping with Loki?

"Kazuya... made a deal with the angels. The death of all people with 'personality of a sinner' eradicated in exchange that we keep our memory. The angels were happy of the request, and give him a memory of theirs as thanks. It broke him."

Keisuke is curious. A memory, that breaks the Messiah... "Is it of Abel's murder?"

Atsuro shakes his head. "No, it happens before that. It is a memory of the original Bel. Previous Bel. Memory of his defeat."

"Isn't that a good thing? The death of a pagan god that only brings chaos?"

Atsuro shakes his head again. "That was what I thought when I heard foreign god too. But no, the current god is the foreign god of the story. Bel was the god of Law at the time. Ours was a chaos god."

_I will kill god, and replace him with a better god._

"When the current god destroyed Bel, the world was re-done, and he became the Law god and creator god. The thing is... a god is an egg. As in, ovum. Wait, no. God is the uterus. No. Corona radiata. He holds the ovum, the creative potential."

Keisuke feels that he has to sit down. "What do you mean?"

"When a world is created, it is mortal, its life has a length. The world holds a single ovum, which is inside god, and is to be deployed to give birth to a new world as the old one dies. When the world nears the end of its life, anyone with a strong ideal can fight to reach the egg and create a new world. To do that, they must defeat god, its keeper."

"God... isn't justice?"

"No, god is a being that must be killed so the world can be renewed, so a new world can be born as the old one dies. God is the reproductive system. From the day Kazuya became the Messiah, the world and god only have exactly a thousand years left to live."

Keisuke bites his lips. A seed must die in order to become. He thought god was eternal, was a solid beacon of justice and ideal. Turns out it's just an organ, a corona radiata, and not only very mortal but must die for the world.

"I think god must want to live the last thousand years of his life in the best way possible, don't you think so?" Atsuro tries to break the ice. "Nobody wants to die in a horrible world. It's best to die peacefully in a place of warmth and joy."

"But what of the Messiah? I thought gods become powerful if people worship him? If the entire world worships him, wouldn't that help him live longer?"

Atsuro laughs, bitter and desperate. "A powerful man still has to die. It doesn't."

"Kazuya?" Keisuke tries, but Atsuro stops him.

"Kazuya will be the one to use the creative potential. Per god's will, as the beloved and the Messiah." Atsuro looks sad despite the news. "His ideal will be same as god and his angels'."

It makes sense. Kazuya is kind and lawful. A man fit to become Messiah surely must have the ideal necessary for a good, lawful world. But Keisuke remembers Naoya, who vows to kill god and replace him. "But if so... We must protect Kazuya from Naoya!"

 

O-

 

It was an useless idea. 

The angels dart and bumble around like crazed beasts, smashing into cars and windows, one of them crashing into the apartment, into the hallway before demolishing the stairs. It flailed like a crazed wild bird, sending debris everywhere with its wings. Naoya hit it over the head, again and again, until it died down. He pulled out its heart and put it on a plate.

“Still not joining us, I take?”

“No.” Keisuke’s refusal is the same as always. A god is needed. Better than nothing. There is no guarantee that the new one will be better, and Naoya doesn’t look trustworthy.

“A shame.” Naoya says as he stabbed the heart with a dango stick, and ate it. Keisuke swears that this man can eat anything.

The rest happened without Keisuke, just like the final day of Lockdown. Kazuya went with Naoya, as Naoya desired it, who knows how many years ago. Kazuya was almost eager.

Humans. Always eager to act on their impulse and regret later. Always kill and pray. When do we ever change? Like the sun still shining upon earth, nobody changes, never enough to truly change.

And the world doesn’t either. One type of hell or another. One type of heaven or another. All on earth. Another seven days are about to begin and Keisuke is sitting it out.

 

Another angel showed up, shoved itself into the room from a crack in the wall, its mouth busy with damning words.

Keisuke hits until it dies and, kneed before it, prays for his sin.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I might start another fic for what happens on Kazuya's side. And one AU where he does join for sake of not making the same mistake twice (thrice for that continuity).
> 
> Other stuff:
> 
> Yes, Keisuke is avoiding his sister and Midori for the entire duration of the fic, somewhat subconsciously, but I didn't feel like writing the obvious, the absence speaks it enough.
> 
> Naoya is confirmed to have no disliked food, and though he believes angels filthy he ate that heart to recover mana and health here.
> 
> Kazuya married Yuzu and angel-related things happened to her, so no one mentioned her anymore. It's better not to. That wasn't pretty. If the other fic happens, you might see it.


End file.
